He didn't call it a 1911 or a Colt. He called it a .45 automatic.
And so did generations of "non-gun" people, and gun people. In the United States, for well over half a century there was essentially, only ONE .45 automatic. Colt made them and called them Government Models. People just called them the .45 auto.
Yes, there actually were a small number of other pistols, available in .45acp, Llama, Star, and some others but they were little known (not well liked) and few in number. To the vast majority of people when someone said .45auto they only meant one thing, the Colt, or its military version.
I can tell you from my own military service that the only time M1911A1 was used was on certain paperwork. In conversation it was ALWAYS just called "the 45".
Veterans are the ultimate authority on their personal military experiences. Beyond that, they may, or may not know what they are talking about. Veterans are no more immune to bull and barracks rumors than anyone else.
had one vet (Korea War era) seriously tell me the way to make an M1 carbine full auto was to "file the shear pin". A guy telling you how the .45 worked in combat might have actually been there and done it. Another one might have spent his entire military career in a supply room in Oklahoma.
The military (and I'm pretty sure all of them do it) ALWAYS …"enhances" the effectiveness of its weapons to recruits. They want recruits to have confidence in their weapons, so they tell them how great they are. And this gets built on, and built on, until it finally reaches legendary (and often unbelievable) levels. By the time troops get to combat and find out the real world limits and effectiveness of their arms, the training cadre and their stories are far behind them.
American tankers got told during training in the states about how the Sherman tank was the best tank in the world. When they got overseas and faced German armor, they found that wasn't entirely true.
Some of us have personal memories of how we were told how great the M16 and its round were. Actual field experience proved those tales to be ...somewhat less than fully accurate...